BA Chairman, Sir Martin Broughton, thinks that airport security is wasting its time checking travelers like celebrities, airline staff, and infants. Instead, security should be focusing its time and resources on higher-risk travelers. Yemeni students, for example. At least this is what he said, according to The Telegraph:

Is it sensible to run exactly the same security checks on pilots -– each and every time they fly –- as, for example, a Yemeni student?…Making everybody suffer inconvenience in the name of uniformity doesn’t make any sense at all and reduces the quality of security by dissipating resources.

As to the inevitable response that this constitutes “racial profiling”, he brushes it off as a non-issue, instead focusing on what “makes the most sense”. He goes on to point out the unnecessary step of screening flight crew, calling them the “ultimate trusted traveler” and that if they really wanted to cause damage, they wouldn’t need to bring hazardous materials on the plane.

As for the US, post 9-11, Sir Martin finds it ridiculous that American security has a policy that screens non-US citizens much more stringently than its own citizens. “They seem to have forgotten that the 9/11 assault was entirely internal with no foreigners entering the country,” he is quoted as saying.

He also criticized British authorities for not getting behind new screening devices that would make removing laptops from their bags a thing of the past.